Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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(GKIDS)It’s 1982, and as 27-year old Taeko travels from Tokyo to the countryside, she reminisces about her childhood in the ’60s. Director Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies) was a co-founder of the beloved Studio Ghibli, but despite the company’s worldwide success with animated classics like My Neighbor Totoro
and Spirited Away, this 1991 film was never released in the U.S. Only Yesterday floats back in forth through time as Taeko recalls small childhood moments like her first taste of pineapple, and larger moments like a schoolgirl crush that sends her flying through the air. I haven’t had a chance to screen the whole film, but from what I can tell, it looks like a masterpiece. E Street Landmark Cinema will screen both a subtitled version and a dubbed version, the latter of which features the voice talents of Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and Dev Patel. Check listings for showtimes.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street Landmark Cinema.
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Pre-blockbuster John BoyegaWhen a South London public housing development is invaded by aliens, the local teenage gang (including future Star Wars: The Force Awakens star John Boyega) rise up to defend their turf in this 2011 action thriller from the producers of Shaun of the Dead. The movie is well-loved, and the AFI is bringing it back for a special engagement. The late Roger Ebert wrote that, Attack the Block is, “an entertaining thriller in the tradition of 1970s B-action films, with an unknown cast, energetic special effects and great energy. That it takes place almost entirely around a low-cost London housing estate (i.e., project) adds to its interest, because as the junior thugs band together to fight the aliens, they stop being faceless and emerge as sympathetic individuals who discover their resources. This alien attack may have been a learning experience dropped from the heavens.”
Watch the trailer.
Friday, February 26-Sunday, February 28 and Thursday, March 3 at the AFI Silver.
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The Iranian Film Festival continues this weekend at the AFI with this “surreal Tehran nocturne.” The Freer sums it up this way: “two drunk party girls get into a car accident and receive help from a mysterious stranger (played by Mohammad Reza Golzar, an unnervingly dead ringer for George Clooney). He pays off the other driver and enlists the girls in an errand involving a supposedly dead dictator, whose weapons of mass destruction are hidden in another dimension. With its apocalyptic and supernatural overtones—and surprising pop culture references ranging from an obscure Pink Floyd album to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”—Ali Ahmadzadeh’s film paints a picture of contemporary Iran like no other.”
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, February 28 at 7 p.m. at the AFI Silver.
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In recognition of Rare Disease Day next week, the Washington Psychotronic Film Society features this 1977 thriller from the master of the body macabre, David Cronenberg. The programmers write, “Plastic surgery sure isn’t what it used to be. Thanks to some experimental medical science, guinea pig Marilyn Chambers (Insatiable, Angel of H.E.A.T.) wakes from a coma no longer hungry for food. But the phallic proboscis that pokes out from under her armpit is thirsty for blood! Before long, most of Montreal has flipped its shit and turned blood-thirsty as well. So much for Canadian healthcare!”
Watch the trailer.
Monday, February 29 at 8 p.m. at Acre 121.
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Also opening this week, Eddie the Eagle tells the story of the British ski jumper who was an unlikely hero at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. We’ll have a full review tomorrow. And don’t forget to check out our preview of the 26th annual Washington Jewish Film festival.
